NPOTA (radio nattering)

[filkerdave]

Now that I've upgraded my license, I can take part in NPOTA, or "National Parks on the Air." It's an activity that the ARRL is doing in conjunction with the US National Park Service in celebration of the latter's 100th anniversary. The basic idea is that radio operators will go out to different NPS units (parks, trails, historic sites) and

Comments

[msminlr]

Does your car have a level-enough roof that you could set the antenna[e] on top [possibly stabilized with a bit of rope] to get yourself a bit more elevation on the antenna[e]?

Would you LIKE a bigger antenna? My late husband [Morris Middleton AD5M] had quite the collection, and I am intending to come to Conterpoint this summer. If you are interested, I could email photos, then bring the lucky winner along in July.

[filkerdave]

I'm definitely interested, although I'm likely not going to be at Conterpoint because I'll probably be at Finncon in Tampere. But I suspect we can find someone to mongol things :)

[hrrunka]

Not bad at all; I've had more difficult days before now. The most frustrating is getting three contacts from a SOTA summit when the tally needed for a successful activation is four. ;)

It can be rather frustrating dealing with various countries' ways of dividing up the spectrum between licence classes. Where I can, I try to use frequencies available to a wider audience, but if the bands are busy it sometimes doesn't work out.

I have very occasionally worked QRP stations in the U.S., but it has always been quite tricky, with a fair bit of luck involved. Being in a low-noise environment really helps.

[filkerdave]

Yes, definitely. I did Croatia on 15m SSB yesterday. The propagation was just perfect.